Unless you have made taking care of the outdoors your life’s work then the odds are good that you do not know the name Husqvarna at all. For those of you who are less than familiar with the company name lets begin by taking a look at how the company describes itself, before we talk about the job cuts they are making , “Husqvarna is the global leader in outdoor power products for forestry, park maintenance and lawn and garden care. The product range includes products for consumers as well as professional users.

The company is getting ready to cut back on about 600 jobs when all is said and done. This move is part of a plan to cut back on the company’s expenses and make them a leaner and less expensive organization. The company has not put out too much in the way of hard dates for the layoffs, but we do know that they will take place between now and sometime in 2014.

If a good portion of the layoffs come to workers in the US, instead of workers in their European headquarters then the company may trigger a mass layoff action. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” The only good news in that case would be that under the terms of a mass layoff action the company would have to give workers several weeks of notice before taking them off of the payroll and putting them onto the unemployment line.

Interestingly in the company’s most recent release they chose not to talk about the major changes they are making to the company’s staff, or the types of severance they may offer the soon to be displaced workers, the company instead chose to highlight a chainsaw contest, “The World Logging Championship 2012, WLC, turned out to be a very exciting competition and a great success for Husqvarna. All medallists used the Husqvarna chainsaw 576 XP. Alexandr Sokolov from Russia won the gold medal and can now entitle himself the world’s best chainsaw operator. Jukka Perämäki from Finland claimed the silver and Urs Amstutz from Switzerland got the bronze. The prestigious 30th WLC took place on the 23-26 of August and gathered 111 contestants from 28 countries – and a cheering audience of about 3500.”

For the time being the company will just have to wait and see when they layoffs come, who the layoffs will come to and what kind of benefits they may get to help them through the transitions.